This is the first chapter of a 2-part story. Sasakura gets an unusual customer, a con artist that’s trying to pry money from another woman. The guy appears to be a friendly person at first, but as you can see, becomes more and more suspicious as the story goes along. It demonstrated yet again that Sasakura is very perceptive and from small clues, he was able to deduce that the customer is a con artist (Almost like a detective!). Not much else has happened so far so there’s really nothing else to say about the story.

There are a few things to comment on aside from the story though. Particularly the Rabelais quote… I still cannot find the exact quote the author is referencing to, which makes me believe he just made it all up. I even found a digital copy of Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, and searched through the whole thing to try and find a quote, but had no luck there. In chapter 19, the author quoted Hemingway, and that went pretty well, so I’m not sure what he did in this chapter. I’ve learned a few things about Parafilm and watches from reading this chapter, so that kind of made up for it. I’ve always maintained my stance that reading comics/mangas can be insightful on many levels, and being able to learn these small trivia is no exception. Bartender is also filled with more random trivia than most mangas. I’m hoping other Bartender readers are also delighted by this fact. Could probably use the drink recipes here to impress some ladies!

Hey, I know you couldn’t find anything on the cocktail, and I don’t mean to demean your translator in any way, since I’m only a first year Japanese student, but that means I can pick out the very basic mistakes more easily, right? The katakana they used for the cocktail probably lacked the small i after the chi, but the actual name is the “Angel’s Tip”. It’s a real cocktail.

I found it! Yes, it’s called Angel’s Tip! And don’t worry about picking out my translating problems, it’s always great to get constructive feedback 😀

I’m actually not translating from Japanese, but from a Chinese translation, and what I’m using is actually the official translation that’s used in the Bartender manga sold in Taiwan. Not saying it’s not prone to errors (since this obviously one of them), but I was hoping it would not have this kind of mistakes >.> I will definitely be more careful next time.

Thanks again for catching this!

HikaruYami

February 26, 2010 at 11:26 am

Ahahahah, that’s an interesting thing to learn! I guess China works a lot less hard at research than you do while translating these XD

Hey actually the drink is not called an angels Tip, its an angels TIT!! Its because it resembles a breast (the cherry being the nipple), you might also know it as the witches tit (if you put two cherries its called a Dolly Parton), the proper name is the King Alphonse though.
Just letting you know! Also I AM a bartender so if you ever need any information on any drinks please email me, and I would be happy to help out. Thanks for translating this fun series!